


Secret Clubhouse

by smallxion



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Episode: Horror Club, Gen, Horror Club, Mr Smiley is Lars' dad, Social Anxiety, Trans Lars, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-12
Updated: 2015-07-12
Packaged: 2018-04-08 23:27:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4324881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smallxion/pseuds/smallxion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Lars! When you turn on the TV tomorrow, this is what’s gonna be on every station!”</p><p>And in that very second, his blood turned to ice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Secret Clubhouse

He couldn’t be seen like that. 

Most people would just see him and think, okay, she’s a little tomboyish, but it wasn’t that simple. Lars’ brain was a shambolic mess of worst-case scenarios, quivering over the ‘what ifs’ and ‘buts’. He just couldn’t (wouldn’t?) risk everyone knowing. Hell, he even convinced Ronaldo to walk right around Beach City with him to get to the Clubhouse, instead of cutting through the centre. It took longer, but there were less people, and he could go less recognised.

“This is the perfect clubhouse for the Beach City Explorer Club!” said Ronaldo with a giggle.

Lars felt his heartbeat kick up to eleven. “Secret clubhouse. Right, Ronnie?” he said, hands on hips in an attempt to maintain his cool, as if the stance could seep through his bloodstream and give him some of the confidence he always pretended to have. He mimed zipping his mouth shut, in the hope that it would make him seem a little less on-edge.

Ronaldo just giggled even more. He did that a lot. In all honestly, Lars was kind of jealous of his best friend’s ability to be so happy all the time. There was genuine sparkle in Ronaldo’s eyes, and whenever Lars looked into them, he found inspiration to fake his own cheeriness.

“Lars,” Ronaldo half-shouted. “You’re a riot!”

Lars felt a warm shiver down his spine, not from the praise but from the use of his correct name, which he heard all too rarely- it was only ever his dad and his best friend that used it, because they were the only ones who knew. While Mr Smiley was careful to say it extra-often just to reaffirm his son’s identity, Ronaldo wasn’t quite so intuitive, so Lars always got that special feeling when he addressed him by name.

His name at the forefront of his mind as he stared at the wall, he had an idea. Hands shaking, he picked a screwdriver off the floor.

He was going to fucking do it.

“Dude!”

Lars looked over at his friend briefly, then back at the wall, which now had “LARS” carved into it. “Just…carving our names in,” he explained. In reality, the thought to add “RONALDO” hadn’t even crossed his mind, he just needed to write his name somewhere it couldn’t be rubbed away. And somewhere nobody else would see it. He pulled his quirkiest grin as a cover. “Pretty metal, huh?” he added, stabbing the screwdriver into the wall.

He didn’t notice the way the room trembled at first. He thought it was just his own shaking, now newly manifest in his vision, but when the board started to jitter out of its position on the wall, he knew something was up. He took an anticipative step back, but not quickly enough. The board swung forward and slapped him in the face, sending him flying to the other end of the room.

He started to say “weird”, but the word was taken in shock as he tumbled, he heard his own voice as a distant sound, along with the click of a camera, which would have set off immediate warning bells if his head didn’t hurt so much.

“Holy smokes! The clubhouse is possessed!”

Lars began to push himself off the floor, trying his best to rub away the pain that was clouding his perception. Was he concussed? Shit, maybe he was concussed. He didn’t like that idea. Concussed people could say and do such stupid stuff, and everyone was going to laugh at him and-

“Lars! When you turn on the TV tomorrow, this is what’s gonna be on every station!”

And in that very second, his blood turned to ice.

The trouble was that Ronnie knew, but he didn’t really get it. Lars had said so many times that he couldn’t be seen like that but Ronnie never listened. He didn’t seem to understand the concept of being closeted, or how paranoid Lars was over the very possibility of a photo of him presenting masculine being in the public eye. 

And maybe it didn’t matter, because nobody would think anything of it- everyone knew Mr Smiley’s daughter would be allowed to wear whatever made her happy, and besides, girls wearing boy-clothes was nowhere near as socially taboo as the other way around (even in a city as progressive as Beach City). Nobody would know what it meant, but Lars couldn’t calm down. 

“B-b-but…but you said this was a secret!” he said, feeling pathetic at the way he could hardly make the words sound recognisable. Beads of sweat on his forehead, he held back tears, because if there was one thing Lars did not do, it was cry in front of other people.

Talking to Ronnie was like asking a brick wall for help. “Our first paranormal discovery!” he squealed in total awe. “We’re gonna take on the world together!”

And fuck, Lars wasn’t ready to take on the world. He wasn’t even ready for everyone to know he was Lars.

“Um.” He tried to clear his head, but all the junk in there refused to shift. He sincerely believed his out-status was in jeopardy, and when that happened, he got irrational. All of a sudden, Lars kicked into action, suddenly able to move with such speed and control because he was on a mission to save himself.

He didn’t mean to fuck everything up; he wasn’t thinking straight.

“Let me just…uh, I’ll just, uh…”

His fingers shredded through the photo, an unpleasant squeaking sound gently making itself heard whenever his fingernails scraped the surface. He tore out his stupid face, hardly even conscious of Ronaldo’s protests.

“I’m just tearing myself out,” he explained, forcing his voice not to shake. He couldn’t be seen like that. He just couldn’t, and he’d do anything to keep his secret safe.

“Stop!”

Ronaldo grabbed Lars with an unexpectedly tight grip, doing his best to grab at the photo’s remains. “Let me see!” he demanded, pulling Lars downwards as he stared at the damage. “What’d you do? Oh!”

Lars felt guilt rush through his system, his stomach flipping as he realised what he’d done to his friend. “Aw, come on, Ronnie, you know I can’t let people see me like that.” 

If he had been talking to his dad, he’d have been met with understanding, but Ronnie was far from.

“What?!” he said, utter disbelief taking him over as he stared up at Lars. “What’s the matter with you?!” He hit Lars, sending him back a step or two, but it hurt a lot less than what he said. 

“What’s the matter with you?” was a loaded question, because fuck, Lars’ head was a mess and he couldn’t hear his birthname without shaking and every day when he woke up, he had to worry that someone would figure it out and beat him up, or worse, tease him for his gender identity. Everything was the matter with him, and he hated himself every time someone reminded him of that.

“Don’t you know how important this was?!”

They shoved at each other for a minute, Lars moving half-heartedly, already defeated from Ronnie’s words. Something was the matter with him. He didn’t have the strength to push as hard as he could.

When he was bursting with need to be alone, Lars turned and started to run away. He would get home, maybe ask his dad for a snack, curl up on the sofa and forget about Ronnie- maybe for a few days, or maybe he had fucked up so bad that this time it was going to have to be forever, he didn’t know, all he knew was that he had to get out, because he was dangerously close to weeping like a tiny kid. 

“Why do you care so much about what other people think?”

And just like that, still sad and hurt and scared, anger was added into the mix of Lars’ emotions. Ronaldo would never know what he was going through. What it was like to live in his head, where no decision was a safe decision, where it felt like everyone was out to get him, waiting to pounce if he did so much as step out of line. And to be shouldering such a stigmatised identity through it all? Ronnie didn’t get it, and he so clearly didn’t care that Lars didn’t feel bad when he said it, even though it was so below the belt.

“You wouldn’t say that if you knew what other people say about you!”

His anger exhausted, Lars just felt tearful, and ran as fast as he could, not stopping until he was within the security of his own home.

*

Even watching it back (on a gem projection, of all things) so many years later, he was worried- it was silly. He was out. Everyone knew he was transgender, and he’d been met with almost universal support. But he couldn’t help but empathise with his younger self’s anxiety- after all, it had never really gone away.


End file.
